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Both Ellie and I are full of cold at the moment, so to cheer us up a bit I thought I’d make a cake to have with a big soothing mug of tea.

such a yummy cake!

I seem to have cake on the brain at the moment, Ellie and I used to make and decorate cakes for people back in our vegetarian, non-gluten free days and it’s not something we’ve really picked again since, so I’ve been wanting to make a sponge cake that can be stacked, covered and adapted for decorating.
This recipe us just for the basic cake, I’m not doing anything fancy with it, but it has a lovely flavour, a great crumb, and is moist and succulent …and really easy!

This quantity makes a nice deep 7 inch round cake,which I cut in half to make a sandwich cake.

As another note, if you don’t have soya yogurt this works just about as well with the same quantity of soya milk warmed up with a teaspoon of lemon juice in it until it starts to split.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade fan.

Grease a 7inch round cake tin with vegan margarine

150g gluten free plain flour ( I’m using Doves Farm)

150g sugar (I’ve used both golden caster sugar and coconut sugar both work fantastically)

150g vegan margarine (I’m using Vitalite)

100g plain soy yogurt

1 teaspoon gluten free baking powder

1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

A pinch of salt

Using a mixer, or plenty of elbow power, beat together the sugar and margarine for a few minutes. It won’t combine completely but will look lighter if a but grainy, for now.

Add the yoghurt and mix again, at the point you may be starting to think it’s gone wrong as the mixture will look slightly like scrambled eggs, trust me this is good!

Sieve in the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum and salt and mix together slowly, this is where it really comes together and you’ll get a lovely glossy batter.

this is how the batter will look!

Place batter in the cake tin and smooth off, pop in the oven.

Mine took 30 minutes to be cooked through and golden, but I’d Recommend checking after about 20 minutes.

Transfer to a cooling rack when baked and wait till it’s cooled before cutting.

I’m working from home today, which gives me a bit of extra time to spend in the kitchen in the morning. I really fancied something like a tea bread, but didn’t want to wait an hour or so for it to bake, instead I made it in a cupcake tray!

They’re best cooked to be eaten straight away, as they can toughen up a little if left. Although they’re great toasted if that happens! They’re such a lovely treat, they are slightly chewy with tonnes of flavour from the dates, walnuts and tea. After soaking your dates, don’t throw the tea away as it gets used for the liquid in the batter.
Makes 6

100g dates

150g gluten free plain flour

1 tsp gluten free baking powder

25g agave syrup

35g walnuts

30g coconut oil

150ml steeping tea

A pinch of salt

Pre-heat the oven to 180 centigrade fan.

Lightly oil a muffin pan

First make a nice cup (a bowl would probably be more sensible but I’m British..) of tea, and pop the dates in it to soak. I used about 200ml of boiling water and an earl grey teabag. Leave for 10 minutes

In a large bowl pop the flour, baking soda, pinch of salt and agave syrup.

Melt the coconut oil, I’ve just taken to microwaving the glass jar with the lid off and pouring it straight out.

In a small blender blitz together the strained dates ( you’ve remembered to keep the tea I hope!) walnuts and coconut oil to the consistency below

date mixture

Add the date mixture to the flour and 150ml of the reserved tea, mix well.

Spoon the mixture into 6 muffin tin holes and flatten it off a bit.

I sprinkled a little dark muscovado sugar on top at this point but I don’t think it needs it.

Continuing with the all the bread making we’ve been working on over the last few weeks, i wanted a go at a Tiger loaf, they are quite a distinctive looking, and tasting, loaf with a sesame paste applied to the top of the loaf giving a slightly nutty flavour and an interesting cracked crust.

The recipe for the bread is very similar to our usual recipe, if you haven’t tried it it’s more like a thick cake batter than a dough, but I’m only using xanthan gum today, rather than guar and xanthan (I don’t have any guar gum!) also I’m not using soya lecithin (I don’t have any of that either) nevertheless this has turned out as a really good loaf, springy and moist and it slices well.

For the bread

2 pound loaf tin, oiled.

350g gluten free flour (I’m using Doves farm plain flour)

7g instant yeast

Half a teaspoon of salt

1.5 teaspoons xantham gum

1.5 teaspoons gluten free baking powder

A pinch of sugar

500ml warm water

For the sesame paste

20g rice flour

20g sesame seeds

10g oil

1g instant yeast

50ml warm water

Start by making the bread batter, add all the dry ingredients, mix well then add the water. I find it best to whisk the mixture together it gives a good smooth result.

Pour the batter into the oiled loaf tin and cover with cling film or a tea towel.

To make the paste, start by toasting the sesame seeds in a dry pan they only take 30 seconds or so to start to brown. In the cup of a small hand blender add all the ingredients for the paste and whizz together until fairly smooth. If you don’t have anything blender-y then crush the sesame seeds in a pestle and mortar then mix well with the other ingredients.

Peel back the cling film on the bread batter and slather the paste over the top of the loaf, recover and leave somewhere warm for about an hour to rise.

After 45 minutes get the oven pre-heating to 180 degrees centigrade.

After an hour place the loaf in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, to check the lag is done tap the bottom of the loaf when it comes out of the tin, it should sound hollow.

Place the loaf on a cooling tray, it’ll firm up slightly, don’t be tempted to try and slice it straight out of the oven, I know, patience isn’t easy.. But it’s worth it!

In this recipe, I was talking about my love of crumpets, to me the English muffin should always be within reaching distance if ever a crumpet is being discussed. They are another bready product where I haven’t seen a commercially available vegan and gluten free variety, so I had to have a go at making a recipe 🙂